Bill
Boak is a seasoned logger. But he is also a big game hunter, a John Wayne
look-alike, a philosopher, and an expert craftsman. Born in 1927, Boak is slim
and athletic, verbal and argumentative, well informed and given to decided
opinions. Tradition has never stood in his way. Boak has survived and prospered
because he is a modern thinker and a modern logger. He is the current spokesman
and central pin for five generations of Boak loggers. His grandfather Ed Boak
logged with horses and stoneboats in British Columbia and Washington. His dad
Ted was a well-known climber, a local “Paul Bunyan” in Castle Rock and Olympia
and Bordeaux, where he broke with tradition and started using the new diesel
donkeys and a breakthrough method of logging with Cats. Bill remembers when the
Mason County Logging Company folded in 1940, and he and his dad were the last to
leave the logging camp. Their job was to cut up the locomotives and donkeys and
sell the metal scrap to Japan.

Bill Boak illustrates
how the beautiful redwood curly has been preserved on the interior of
old, charred stump.

Changing With the Times
The Boaks did highlead contract logging in old growth for Weyerhaeuser, who sold
their acreage to Simpson and then a succession that included Arcata Redwood and
Louisiana Pacific and ultimately Simpson again. Bill likes working with Simpson
(presently changing its name to Green Diamond Resources): “They’re in it for the
long run. Clearcutting can be a bad word, but these guys leave a corridor of
trees for the public, snags for birds, and improved logging roads and culverts
everywhere. They bypass millions of feet of timber to retain shade for stream
protection.” These are high stakes for Simpson, who is currently backing a
proposal called the Aquatic Habitat Conservation Plan (AHCP), which is its
environmental plan for continued logging while protecting and improving habitat
for coho, chinook salmon, steelhead trout and several other species on the
Endangered Species Act’s “threatened list.”

Boak’s Pierce
ROBEE290LC/Hyundai stoker (delimber) on tracks.

Teaching
Environmentalists
Bill reflects on the earliest stages of the environmental movement that has put
loggers and whole logging communities on a parallel “threatened” list. He made
numerous trips to Sacramento for audiences with Governor Jerry Brown and
spearheaded a loggers’ trek to Washington, D.C., to try to work with President
Carter. He spent a lot of his own money for a cause that he felt was too
important to ignore. He was invited to go to Torrance, Calif., to tell the story
from a logger’s point of view. Bill knew how to put on a show. He secured 10,000
redwood seedlings to give as promo gifts, brought the world champion tree
climber to do a demonstration, shipped in equipment, and provided stump sprouts
to show renewed forest growth. Members of the audience competed for a dune buggy
by trying to guess the number of redwood seeds in a gigantic punch bowl. “Our
purpose was to provide information, not to start a fight,” Bill explains. “Most
of these folks were Boak’s Pierce ROBEE290LC/Hyundai stoker (delimber) on
tracks. seriously concerned about their forests.

Environmentalists are often good
people, and it’s hard to fight good people. It’s so much easier to combat a
well-defined, despicable villain.” He carries this lesson with him as his crew
does a clearcut on Simpson lands north of McKinleyville, Calif. Humboldt County
has its share of activists, and this is prime tourist country— the celebrated
Highway 101 is a stone’s throw from some of Boak’s crew. Confrontation is a
definite possibility, but he’d like to show the public how Simpson foresters
study the land, assess the flora and fauna, improve logging roads and culverts,
and politely sacrifice good timber so the public will see a live tree buffer
rather than a freshly logged area. “I’d like folks to see the varied richness of
both plant and animal life a year or two after a clearcut,” he says. “I’d like
them to understand what we are doing, to drop the ‘damned’ from ‘damned logger,’
and to actually thank us for protecting nature and providing lumber for their
homes.”

Boak’s Pierce
ROBEE290LC/Hyundai stoker (delimber) on tracks. Helping out is a Boman
motorized carriage that is bring in the load.

Today’s Operation
The Boak operation is both nature friendly and people-friendly. Hightech
mechanical logging is the key. Ask his opinion on motorized carriages: Acme,
Boman, Eagle, Maki—he’s worked with them all. At one site the portable
Thunderbird TMY50 yarder with its Boman motorized carriage is easy on the land.
The Pierce ROBEE290LC/Hyundai stroker or delimber can swing and pivot without
tearing up a lot of soil. The Jewell Kobelco loader neatly sorts by species and
then fills a waiting truck…and all with a minimum of noise. “Do you notice how
quiet this operation is?” Boak asks. “That has to be good for the environment,
but better than that, we have no guys on the ground here. We’ve reduced the
possibility of human injury. We’ve made logging a lot safer.” At this site the
carriage brings in mostly redwood but also a mixture of fir, spruce, alder.
Simpson has contracted the hauling to Gary Bare Trucking, and the destinations
change almost daily, depending on the prices at the mills. On this date the
spruce and alder were headed to Coos Bay and Brookings, the fir to Trinity River
Lumber in Weaverville, and the redwood to Simpson’s own mill in Korbel.

Working with Wood
Boak admits to a terrible fascination with some of the eighty-plus year-old
redwood stumps that are left over from earlier logging days. Boak wedges an axe
down to retrieve a slice to show both the black exterior and the bright
interior. “That’s curly redwood, some of the finest around. I buy pieces like
these and they end up in my workshop.” Once in Boak’s woodshop, the curly stuff
becomes an artist’s medium. Dazzling creations include the one-of-akind gun
cases he makes…including one that houses his specially made Getz 50-calibre
muzzleloader — a gun that stands up to the rigors of big game hunting Bill does
in Africa.

Future Generations of
Boaks
Although Bill has seen a lot of changes in the logging world, he’s never feared
them. “I thrive on difficult situations,” he says, “and it’s a good thing to
know about myself. I’d like to see everyone take one or two psychology classes,
just to make life easier.” Much of this philosophy has been handed down to the
next Boak generation…and to the next. Bill’s four daughters all worked for a
time in the family company, and his two sons are gradually assuming full
leadership. Next in line, his grandkids are already learning from the ground up.